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In The Spotlight

Campaign Finance Bibliography

Campaign Finance and Partisan Polarization in the United States Congress

Type

Journal

Citation

La Raja, Raymond J. "Campaign Finance and Partisan Polarization in the United States Congress." Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 9.2 (2015): 223-258.

Abstract

The prevailing campaign finance system, as conceived under the 1974 reforms, makes candidates heavily reliant on the most ideological elements in both parties. Regrettably, the conventional frameworks for understanding the dynamics of campaign finance have boxed us into reform solutions that are likely to intensify rather than attenuate partisan polarization. The ongoing emphasis on anti-corruption instigates rules that set contribution limits at unrealistically low levels for candidates and political parties. This situation compels politicians to redouble efforts to raise money from ideological constituencies. More critically, however, is a failure to see that the party system has strengthened to the point at which rules designed originally in 1974 for candidate-centered elections make little sense during a period when political parties are characterized by intense partisanship. The United States has a strong party system, but weak party organizations, in part, because of the candidate-centered design of campaign finance laws. The close seat margins for controlling government, as well as the policy distinctiveness of the major parties have dramatically raised the electoral stakes. Partisans therefore have strong incentives to mobilize collectively so as to maximize the likelihood of winning elections. In most democracies, party organizations are the essential vehicle for carrying out this task. In the United States, however, parties are constrained by campaign finance laws, among other institutional features. Ideological factions associated with the parties fill the breach in financing politics because both statutes and the Supreme Court's election law jurisprudence confer advantages to non-party groups relative to party organizations. The result is a politics in which ideological factions wield enormous influence in supporting favored candidates and setting the campaign agenda. Using an approach that incorporates an understanding of the institutional flow of campaign money, this paper argues that strengthening party organizations by making them more central in financing elections should reduce ideological polarization between the major parties. While such reasoning may seem counterintuitive, it reflects the realities of organizational incentives in the political system. Party organizations are uniquely situated to raise funds from diverse factions and invest them in relatively moderate candidates. For this reason, a party-centered system may attenuate polarization, while simultaneously improving transparency and accountability in elections.